Reading Fast, Reading Slow: The Effect of Interviewers' Speed in Reading Introductory Texts on Response Behavior.

ABSTRACT: Guidelines for interviewers frequently include instructions to read question texts exactly as they are worded. Deviations from these guidelines on standardized interviewing might affect the comparability of survey answers and impair the quality of data. This paper contributes to the literature on interviewer behavior by analyzing how interviewers change their reading behavior during fieldwork and whether this behavioral change influences the response behavior of survey respondents. We use item-level paradata from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to measure interviewers' reading times and focus our analyses on introductory questions that do not require an immediate response by the respondent. In contrast to prior research, this focus enables us to disentangle th

SUBMITTER: Bergmann M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7147818 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature